Well, i'm personally not very happy with the new free-to-play thing, like you, as well as a notable amount of fanbase as i see.

And i believe LDW people are also unhappy to do this work in that way. Because i know they do it with love.
But New trend probably doesn't allow them to use creativity fully and properly.
And they have to follow New trend to survive.

I really miss back when casual games were actually good.
Here's a great article about it; https://goo.gl/KZ4UnX
There was also a South Park episode about it, titled "freemium isn't free"